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Here’s Why Toronto-Dominion Bank Could Be a Smart Investment

This Canadian bank has several qualities that might appeal to U.S. investors.

Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD), better known as TD Bank, could be a great bank to add to your portfolio for several reasons. For example, did you know that TD Bank has paid dividends since before the Civil War?

Michael Douglass: You've talked a little bit about TD Bank. I'd love to hear a full-on pitch on the bank, so, why you like it. I think for anyone who's thinking about an international bank, it's a good place to start. Let's just talk through that a little bit.

Matt Frankel: Before I get into TD, Canadian banks in general, there's a few good ones. Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal are other good ones. The Canadian banking system has been much more well-behaved, I guess you'd say, than the American banking system. American banks average a crisis every 15 years or so, on average. The last Canadian banking crisis was in 1839. It's a much more stable system. The banks just behave better on their own.

But, moving on from that, TD I love out of the three for its diversification and dual-threat. They're one of the leading banks in Canada, and they have a growing U.S. presence. For people listening on the West Coast, for example, TD really isn't there yet. But in a lot of markets on the East Coast, they've built up a dominant presence. New York City, for example, they're one of the top three by market share there. And they've done it in a way that's different from a lot of U.S. banks, which are closing branches and trying to ship everything away from actually interacting with people. TD prides itself as being America's most convenient bank, which, they picked up that title from one of the companies that they acquired. They keep their branches open late, they keep them open on weekends, Sundays, even, in a lot of cases. I remember I used to have TD Bank in New Jersey, and I could go through a drive through and deposit a check with a person at 10:00 PM in certain locations. So, a really customer-centric business model.

And not only that, they have some of the best asset quality of any banks. They have one of the best credit ratings in banking. Credit ratings, S&P rates them as AA-. And they're all around, great asset quality, great management, can set their own dividend policy. Like I said, they pay about 4%. They've paid dividends every year since before the Civil War. People make such a big deal over the dividend aristocrats, which have increased their dividends for 25 consecutive years. TD has paid dividends since 1858 and has increased their dividend for much of that time, over the past couple of decades, by more than 10% a year. So, when you compare that to the track record of a lot of U.S. banks, European banks, it just looks so much better from a standpoint of an investor who likes stability.